Being one of the major bottlenecks in overall performance, a slight boost in memory speed can have a deciding effect on how peppy your PC is. If you have 133 MHz (or faster) modules installed in a relatively modern motherboard, you can adjust the system memory frequency accordingly. The PC133 specification delivers 33 per cent more throughput over the PC100 variety, which comes in useful with regard to memory demanding programs, especially games. More often than not, Quake III shows at least a 15 per cent rise in fps just by using quicker memory. You can squeeze your system’s memory for more juice by lowering the time it takes to respond.
Usually, system memory takes about three cycles to react. However, most memory modules can do it quicker. Let’s try bringing this value down further. Proceed to the Advanced Chipset option and select the entry that reads as SDRAM CAS Latency Time. Bring the value down by a notch from 3 to 2. While inside the same set of options, look for SDRAM RAS-to-CAS Delay and SDRAM RAS Precharge Time and change those to two as well. The final scene to conquer on the memory front comes with adjusting how much time it takes for data transactions to happen. The default value for this is 6/8, which is slower, albeit more stable than lower values. Lowering the number will boost system performance, but at the risk of stability. It’s usually possible to bring the SDRAM Cycle Time down to 5/7; your hardware should be able to handle it. Look for this particular entry in the Advanced Chipset option.
